User guide for Examiners

Version 11.0
For the September 2016 RM Assessor release and later
User instructions for RM Assessor, the world’s
most widely used high stakes onscreen marking software
International Baccalaureate
Peterson House, Malthouse Avenue, Cardiff Gate
Cardiff, Wales GB CF23 8GL
United Kingdom
Phone: +44 29 2054 7777
Fax: +44 29 2054 7778
Website: http://www.ibo.org

© International Baccalaureate Organization 2016

The International Baccalaureate (IB) offers three high quality and challenging educational
programmes for a worldwide community of schools, aiming to create a better, more
peaceful world.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission
of the IB, or as expressly permitted by law or by the IB’s own rules and policy. See
http://www.ibo.org/copyright.

The RM Assessor trademark is owned by RM. International Baccalaureate hereby

acknowledge all trademarks and copyrights of RM products.

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Table of Contents
Pre-requisites for using the RM Assessor marking tool 7
Cookie Legislation 7
System requirements 8

Introduction 9
Terminology used in RM Assessor 9
Security 10

Getting started 11
Login and familiarisation 11
Out of browser operation 12
The main screens 12
Home page 12
Worklist page 14
Marking page 16
Setting your marking preferences 17
Locking RM Assessor 19
Start marking 19
Your marking target 21
Identifying response types 22
Concurrent limit 23
Grace period and pending status 23
Marking in simulation mode 23
Refreshing your data 24
Log out 25

Marking basics 26
Downloading responses to mark 26
Opening responses 26
Booklet view 28
Partial page suppression 29

Messages 30
Sending a message from the Marking page 30
Sending a message from a worklist 32

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Getting approval to mark 32
The approval process 32
Practice marking 33
Qualification marking 35
Second qualification 35
Waiting for approval 35
Seeding responses 35
Quality feedback 36
Viewing Current and Previous Annotations 37
Pending Review status 38

Marking structured and unstructured responses 38

Full Response View 40
Rotate tool 40
Link tool 40
Navigation 41
Auto-advancing to the next response 41
Moving between responses 42
Moving between question items 42
Moving between QIGs 43
Marking by question or candidate 43
Resizing the marks and thumbnails panels 44
Zooming images 45
Moving around an image 46
Page position indicator 47
Page scrolling in structured responses 47
Page suppression 48
Annotations 48
Types of annotation 49
Accessing annotations 49
Annotation colours 51
Adding, moving and removing annotations 51
Modifying annotations 52
Hiding annotations Error! Bookmark not defined.
Floating the marking and annotations toolbar 53
Re-ordering annotations in the toolbar 53

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 Annotations with assigned values 53
Annotation counts 54
Recording marks 55
Entering marks 55
Marking by annotation only 57
Finding a question number from an annotation 58
Modifying marks 58
Resetting a mark to ‘not marked’ 59
Saving and closing marked responses 59
Submitting responses 61
Changing marks after submission 63

Advanced marking 63
Additional pages 63
Alternative marking features 63
Question totals 63
Optional questions 64
Unanswered questions 65
Marking atypical responses 66
Marking zoned responses 67
Marks panel 68
Dealing with zoning errors 68
Marking ecoursework in RM Assessor 69
Re-marking 71

Organising your work 71

Sorting 72
Filtering 72
Creating a filter 72
Toggling a filter 73
Removing a filter 73
Tagging 74
Assigning tags 74
Renaming tags 75
Filtering tags 76
Removing tags 76
Opening a shared response 77

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 Exceptions 77
Raising an exception 78
Closing a resolved exception 80

Getting support 81
Help 81
Troubleshooting 81
Connection problems 81
Annotations toolbar is not visible 82
I can’t find a response 82
Nothing available to mark 82
Timeout 82

Reference 84
Technical information 84
Keyboard shortcuts 84

Index 85

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Pre-requisites for using the RM Assessor
marking tool
Cookie Legislation
To comply with EU laws on the use of cookies RM is required to inform users about the
cookies that are used on all externally-facing websites.

When you view the login page of RM Assessor, a message shall clearly inform you that
cookies are used, and you shall have the ability to view more information if you wish.
You shall also be able to suppress the message so it does not appear for subsequent
visits on the same machine.
Microsoft Silverlight must be installed on your computer in order to run RM Assessor. If
you don't already have it installed, when you try to launch RM Assessor, the login
screen will prompt you to install it.

To install Silverlight:
1. Open your browser and go to the URL https://ib-marking.assessor.rm.com

If you do not have Silverlight installed, a prompt displays on the login screen.

2. Click Install Microsoft Silverlight.

3. Click Run.

4. Click Install now. After a few moments, an Installation successful screen

displays.

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5. Click Close to close the dialog box and then press F5 to refresh the login screen.
You can now continue to log in.

System requirements
To see the system requirements in RM Assessor:
 On the login page, click Show system requirements. A window similar to one of
those shown below is displayed. While this window is open you can test the speed
of your Internet connection and click to download a System Requirements
document in your preferred language.

To test the speed of your Internet connection:

 In the System Requirements window, click Test Internet connection speed.
An example screen is shown below. The Your Computer column below shows the
information for an example computer. Yours will be different.

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Introduction
Terminology used in RM Assessor
Response is the term we use when referring to a particular candidate's answers to a
group of questions.
A question item is a question, or a part of a question, for example question 2b, or the
smallest part of a response that can be marked.
There are two other related but important terms that appear in RM Assessor screens:
A QIG (Question Item Group) is a unit of marking. It is a group of question items
within an examination paper, and for IB purposes a whole paper. It is the question and
the mark scheme structure. QIGs are used in RM Assessor to divide the marking of a
paper between different groups of markers, for example between different subject
experts.

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 A RIG (Response Item Group) is a group of answers made by a particular candidate
to the questions set in a corresponding QIG. We usually use the term Response as
shorthand for RIG. You will typically select a single QIG and mark hundreds of RIGs or
responses from different candidates.

Security
Every effort has been made to maintain the security of data when using RM Assessor
and the system is designed so that:
 Candidate data is not permanently stored on your computer and is only viewable for
marking using RM Assessor.
 Transmission of information between the RM Assessor website and your computer
is secure.

Note: You are responsible for maintaining the security and privacy of your login
details.

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Getting started
Login and familiarisation
During the login process you have the option to enter familiarisation mode. In this mode
you can try out RM Assessor using sample materials available for experimentation. The
sample material is both generic and IB specific but the primary purpose of
familiarisation being so that you can concentrate on using core functionality of RM
Assessor. Don’t worry about what you do as the material is reset each night.

To log in:
1. Open your web browser and enter: https://ib-marking.assessor.rm.com , then press
Return on your keyboard.
The login screen displays.

2. If you want to enter familiarisation mode, select the Familiarisation Mode check
box.
3. Type your user name and password in the boxes and click Login. Your login
credentials can be found on IBIS under My Marking > E-marking.
The RM Assessor Home page is displayed unless you receive a mandatory
message.

Note: RM Assessor checks to see if there are any software updates to apply.
Should it find any, the login time will be extended.

From this point you can select a QIG (Question Paper) and start marking.

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Out of browser operation
If required, you can install an RM Assessor application on your computer that runs
outside of the browser. The benefits of this are:
 Whole screen viewing (without the normal browser menu bar options that reduce
viewable screen area)
 Improved initial loading performance on low bandwidth internet connections
 Entry of Asian double-byte characters

To install the out-of-browser application:

1. Go to the RM Assessor login screen as described in the previous section.
2. In the bottom right corner of the login screen, click the Click to install non-
browser version link.
3. Follow the instructions that are then displayed.

Note: After the installation of the application, the link on the login screen changes to
Non-browser version is installed on this computer.

To remove the application:

4. Open the application.
5. Right-click anywhere on the screen and then click Remove this application.

6. When prompted, click OK.

The main screens

Home page
When you start RM Assessor, the first screen you see is the Home page.

This page shows a list of the QIGs (Question Papers) allocated to you for marking.

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As an examiner, you will only see the Marking tab at the top of the page. Principal
Examiners and team leaders may also see Team Management and
E-standardisation tabs.
As an examiner, if there are some actions you need to carry out, for example some live
marking, the Action Required indicator will appear on the Marking tab:

By default, the screen shows All QIGs (Question Papers) allocated to you, but you can
use the filter options to filter the list:
 Click Ready to Mark to show only QIGs with responses that are ready to be
marked
 Click Feedback Required to show only QIGs where you cannot mark responses as
you are waiting for action by a team leader or the IB Assessment Centre.
 Click New Messages to show only QIGs with new messages
 Click Resolved Exceptions to show only QIGs with exceptions you have raised
that have now been resolved
You can also use the drop-down list at the top right of the screen to group the displayed
QIGs (Question Papers).
A QIG may be a whole paper, part of a paper, or a single question item.
For each listed QIG (Question Paper), the Progress column shows the number of
responses you have marked and submitted, the target number of responses and the
number of responses currently in the worklist (which are either waiting to be marked, or
have been marked but not yet submitted – you can download more responses up to
your concurrent limit and until you reach your target).

Note: Targets are based on expected number of scripts, and there may be fewer
scripts available towards the end of the marking period.

The number of bars in the indicator in the Responses Available column tells you from
how many schools you have responses available to download and mark, as follows:
1 bar Responses available from 1 school

2 bars Responses available from 2 to 9 schools

3 bars Responses available from 10+ schools

Greyed out with No responses available at present.

no bars

For example, the following indicator with three bars indicates that you have responses
available from 10+ schools:

The Re-marks Available column contains a similar indicator which tells you when the
IB has asked you to do some re-marking.
The Status column shows your own status in relation to this QIG (Question Paper). It
may be one of the following:
Live Marking You have live marking to complete until you reach your target.

Live Complete You have met your target for live marking.

Practice Marking You have practice marking available to help you to familiarise
yourself with RM Assessor and the markscheme.

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Simulation You have marking available at the very start of the session to help
Marking you to familiarise yourself with the markscheme – this marking is
not saved (see Marking in simulation mode).

Qualification You have qualification marking to complete as part of the approval

Marking process.

Standardisation The standardisation setup process is in progress.

Set-up

Pending Review Your status has changed to Feedback Required and you are
unable to download or submit marked responses until you have
received feedback from a team leader or your marking has been
reviewed by the IB Assessment Centre.

Second Your 1st qualification sample was not marked within the required
Qualification tolerance. You will receive feedback from a team leader before
Marking being given a 2nd qualification sample to complete.

Quality Feedback You have marked a seed outside of the required tolerance, you
outstanding are required to review and accept this feedback before being able
to continue marking.

To open a QIG (Question Paper) do one of the following:

 Click Start Marking on a selected QIG to go straight to marking a QIG of your
choice. You are taken directly to the Marking page and RM Assessor opens the
first available response, in marking mode.
 Click Go to Worklist to go to the Worklist page for a particular QIG. You are taken
to your marking Worklist.

Worklist page
The area where your marking for a particular QIG is organised is called the Worklist
page. To see this page, click Go to Worklist against the required QIG on the Home
page.
This is the Worklist page, showing a list of Live responses that you are required to
mark.

When the actions required indicator ( ) is shown in the title bar actions are required
on other QIGs. The indicator may also be shown on the Messaging and/or Exceptions
menu options when you have unread messages and/or exceptions to close
respectively.

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The page shows a number of worklists, for example Live, Atypical or Re-mark. When
you first go to the Worklist page, the Live worklist is selected in the left-hand
navigation bar, but no responses will be listed; you need to use the New response
button to download one or more responses to your worklist for marking.
Apart from Live, you may see other worklists under Marking, including:
 Atypical – this is always present; it enables you to mark responses that are out of
the ordinary and need special treatment, for example oversized scripts.
 Re-mark – this will appear if you have been asked to do some remarking; you may
have one or more types of re-mark worklist displaying.
 Quality feedback – this will appear if a seed has been marked outside of the
required tolerance and automated quality feedback is available to review and
accept.
In the list of responses within each worklist, each row shows a single candidate’s
response. The following information is displayed for each response:

Heading Explanation
Type An icon indicates the type of response – practice ( ), live marking ( )

Tag User assigned tags are displayed in this column

Display ID The identification code for the response
Progress The percentage of this response marked so far
Total Mark The total mark awarded to this response so far
Has Open Exception(s) – if a number appears in this column against a
response this indicates the number of open exceptions which has been
raised against the response.
Has Related Message(s) – if a number appears in this column against a
response this indicates the number of messages there are relating to the
response
Status In the list of Open responses this is always Open. In the list of Closed
responses this is either Pending (marked and submitted but within grace
period) or Closed (marked, submitted and grace period expired).
Allocated The date on which the response was allocated. By default Live and Re-
Date mark worklists are sorted using the date in this column.
Last Updated The last time the response was modified

You can sort the list of responses on a particular column by clicking on the column
heading. Click again to toggle between sorting in ascending or descending order.
To mark a response, either double-click it or select it and then click the Mark response
button on the toolbar.
From the Submit Response drop-down menu, select Submit selected responses to
submit selected responses that you have marked, or Submit completed responses to
submit all responses that you have fully marked.
Notice the Open responses and Closed responses options. Make sure you choose
Open responses to see current work. Once a response is closed and the grace period
has expired, you can no longer make any changes to marks.
In the left-hand navigation bar, you can click Messaging to view and send messages,
or click Exceptions to see exceptions you have raised and those that have been
resolved.
To close a worklist along with all open responses and return to the Home page, click
the cross on the Worklist tab.

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To return to the Home page without closing an open worklist, click the Back to Home
Page link at the top of the page. The Home page will then provide a link to navigate
back to the open worklist.
You can only have one QIG open at a time.

Marking page
This is the Marking page.

Opening the Marking page from the Home page automatically loads the first response
from your worklist, ready for marking. The candidate’s response occupies most of the
screen.
The highlighted tab at the top of the screen shows the type of response being marked
or viewed and its RM Assessor display ID number. The example above shows a Live
response.
On the right is the question item list, showing the items to be marked. Below that is the
mark input panel where you enter your marks for each response for QIGs using the
manual mark entry marking method.
On the left you can see thumbnail views of pages, depending whether you are marking
a structured or unstructured response. If you are marking a structured response you
will see thumbnails only for the current page plus any additional objects that relate to
the selected question item. If you are marking an unstructured response you will see
thumbnails for all pages.
You can click on a thumbnail to navigate to the relevant page or additional object. You
can also drag the divider bar between the thumbnails and the response to enlarge the
thumbnail view.
You can go to the Worklist page at any time, leaving the response that you are
marking open, or you can return to the Home page.
The Marking page can be operated in three modes:
 Marking Mode – allows you to enter, edit and delete marks. To switch from view
mode to marking mode, click Start Marking.
 View Mode – allows you to see the response without being able to alter the marks.
Until you click Start Marking when you are looking at a particular response, you
will be in this mode. To switch back to view mode at any time, click Stop Marking.
 Full Response View Mode – for a structured response only, click the Full
Response View button to see the whole response, not just the areas that have

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 been mapped to questions, and scroll up and down viewing pages. In this mode
you can link pages to particular question items, but you can't mark a response in
this view; in order to mark the response you need to return to Structured
Response View in marking mode. When marking an unstructured response, you
can always see the full response so the Full Response View button does not
appear.

Setting your marking preferences

To set a marking preference:
1. Click the Controls icon at the top right of the page and select User Options.

2. The User Options dialog box is displayed:

3. Tick the required options as follows:

Option Description
Assign Single Digit Tick the tickbox if you want to automatically enter single
Marks Without digit marks (i.e. marks in the range 0 to 9) and move to
Pressing Enter Key the next question or response as appropriate as soon as
you enter them, without your needing to press Enter.
This option has no effect if you are marking by
annotation.
On Screen Mark Tick the tickbox to display a large red number on screen
Confirmation every time you enter a mark, to act as a visual
confirmation.
Auto Advance Tick the tickbox if you want to automatically advance to
the next response in the following circumstances:

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Option Description
 if marking by candidate, when you have finished
marking a candidate's response (i.e. the response is
now 100% marked) and there is another available
response.
 If marking by question, when you enter a mark for a
candidate against a question, so long as there is
another available response.
You can also toggle Auto Advance using the button on
the toolbar in the Marking page.
Auto Allocate Tick the tickbox if you want to automatically allocate (get
or download) the next response when you have finished
marking the last response that you have downloaded
into the open worklist.
You can also toggle Auto Allocate using the button on
the toolbar in the Marking page.
Remember Pages for Tick this box if you want RM Assessor to remember
Atypical Responses which page you are on when you enter marks against a
question item for an atypical response, and
automatically navigate to this page when you mark the
same question item in the next atypical response.
Reset Unstructured Tick this box if you want RM Assessor to reset the
Image on Changing displayed image to the first image in a response when
Question you change question item, when marking an
unstructured response.

Remember Selected When marking a question with this setting selected, RM

Image and Scroll Assessor remembers the selected image (if there is
Position for more than one thumbnail image associated with the
Structured question), scroll position (horizontal as well as vertical)
Responses and zoom settings. When navigating in marking mode to
the same question in a subsequent candidate response,
the same position is then displayed.
Stop media when off Select to automatically stop media playing when you
page comments are click the Add Comment link during marking.
added for
ecoursework
components
Order annotations Select either Frequency or Name. When Frequency is
by... selected, annotations are ordered according to how
often they have been used. When Name is selected,
annotations are ordered alphanumerically on the
annotations tool bar.
Mark By... Select either Question or Candidate. If you select
Question then you will mark the same question for each
candidate in turn. If you select Candidate then you will
mark all questions for each candidate before moving to
the next response.
You can also choose whether to mark by question or
candidate using the buttons on the toolbar in the
Marking page.

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 Option Description
Logging mode Select the diagnostic option if instructed to do so by the
emarking support team or RM technical support team.
Default should be the selected mode at all other times.
Ask Before Exit Tick this box if you want RM Assessor to ask you for
confirmation every time you log off.

4. When you have finished setting your preferences, click OK.

Locking RM Assessor
To lock RM Assessor while you are temporarily away from your desk, click the lock icon
in the top right corner of the screen.

When you return to your desk, enter your password to resume marking.

Start marking
You can start marking either from the Home page or the Worklist page.

To start marking from the Home page:

1. On the Home page, click Start Marking for the QIG you want to mark.

2. RM Assessor automatically opens the first available response for the QIG in
marking mode so you can mark it.
3. Select a question item in the mark input panel.
If you are marking a structured response, the relevant response item is
automatically displayed.
If you are marking an unstructured response, in order to mark the selected question
item you need to find the corresponding response item on the image – this is not
automatically displayed.

Note: When you add annotations to an unstructured response, you must ensure
that the correct question item is selected, otherwise the annotations and any
associated marks will be assigned to the wrong question item.

4. There are two ways in which you can record marks.

 By entering marks directly, and optionally also adding annotations that do not
have assigned mark values
 By adding annotations that have assigned mark values
Which of these methods you use depends on how IB has configured the QIG. You
can only ever use one of these methods at a time, never both methods in
combination.
If you are marking by direct mark entry, the mark box in the mark input panel will be
available. In the mark box type or select a mark for the selected question, and then
either press Enter or select the next question item in the mark input panel.

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 If you are marking by annotation, select the required annotation from the annotation
toolbar at the top of the page and then click on the page to add the annotation in
the required position. You can add a number of annotations to the same question
item. When you have finished adding annotations, either press Enter or select the
next question item in the mark input panel
Continue marking until you feel like stopping or there are no more responses to
mark.

Note: You can stop marking, as described below, and resume marking at any
time.

To start marking from the Worklist page:

1. On the Home page, click Go to Worklist for the QIG you want to mark.
2. In the left-hand navigation bar, select the relevant worklist, for example Live.
3. Ensure that Open responses is selected.
4. If no responses are listed, click New response to download the next available
response to your worklist. Repeat if you want to download further responses up to
your concurrent limit.
5. Either double-click a response to open it or select a response then click Mark
response. You can see from the progress column in the worklist which responses
still need completing. The response opens in read only mode to enable you to
review it prior to marking.

6. On the Marking page, click Start Marking.

The response remains open in marking mode until you advance to the next
response, close the response by clicking on the cross on its tab, or click Stop
Marking to temporarily pause marking.

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 To stop marking:
Do one of the following:
 Click Stop Marking. This saves the marks and annotations you’ve entered so far
and keeps the response open but in view mode.

 Click the Close cross on the tab for the response you want to close. This saves the
marks and annotations you’ve entered so far then closes the response and returns
you to the work list.

 Click Save & Close to save any changes you have made and close the response.

 Click the Close cross on the Worklist tab. This saves the marks and annotations
you’ve entered so far, closes the worklist and all open responses and then returns
you to the Home page.

 Click either the Next or Previous button. This saves the marks and annotations
you’ve entered so far, closes the current response (whether or not you've finished
marking it) and opens the next or previous response in your work list ready for
marking.

Your marking target

Your marking target is the maximum number of responses you can mark in RM
Assessor. To view your marking target information please refer to IBIS. If your target is
significantly less than you expected, please contact the assessment officer responsible
for your subject.

Note: Targets are based on expected number of scripts and there may be fewer
scripts available towards the end of the marking period.

On the Worklist page, you will see your marking target for the currently selected QIG
under the Progress heading in the QIG information shown at the bottom left of the
screen.

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Identifying response types
You may encounter different types of response in RM Assessor, which are identified
using these icons:

Practice responses – used to support familiarization with RM Assessor

and the markscheme
Candidate or marking responses – your marking of these determines
candidates’ performance in the examination.
Seeding responses are displayed to you as candidate responses (see
above) and are only identified to your team leader. Seeding responses are
used to check the quality and consistency of your marking throughout the
period you mark.
Qualification responses – used to check the quality and consistency of
your marking prior to being approved for live marking.

You can see the response type icon and description to the left of each response in a
worklist, in the Type column. In this example, some live responses are shown.

You can also see the response type icon and description on the Marking page at the
top of the mark input panel.

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Concurrent limit
There is a maximum number of open responses you can hold in your Live worklist for
each QIG at one time. This is referred to as the concurrent limit. The typical concurrent
limit is 20.
If you attempt to download an additional response once you’ve reached your
concurrent limit a warning message is displayed.

You need to fully mark and submit existing open responses before you can download
further responses.

Grace period and pending status

Any response you submit shows a status of Pending when you are looking at Closed
Responses on the relevant worklist. It remains in this state for the grace period. A
commonly used period is 24 hours.
During the grace period you can change any saved marks or annotations. At the end of
the grace period the status of your response is changed to Closed and no further
changes to the marks are possible.

Marking in simulation mode

While responses for a component are being scanned and uploaded into RM Assessor,
and the standardisation team is creating any practice and qualification responses that
you may be required to mark before you can move to live marking, you may have the
opportunity to mark the uploaded responses in simulation mode. This mode allows you
to familiarise yourself with RM Assessor marks structure for the QIG and the marking
tools available when marking it. When you undertake marking in simulation mode
marks are not recorded and your marking is not visible to your team leader or the IB.
It is recommended that you take advantage of simulation mode marking to become
more familiar with the marking of your component.
If you are involved in the standardisation process for a particular component simulation
mode marking is not available to you.

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 If there is any simulation mode marking available it will be indicated on the Home page
as shown below.

You can open and mark responses for simulation marking QIGs in the usual way.
You can download simulation responses up to your concurrent limit, submit 100%
marked responses, and then download further simulation responses if they are
available. Once you have submitted a simulation response, it is not possible to view it
in your closed responses worklist as the closed responses do not show for simulation
items worklist.
When the simulation mode marking period is over for the QIG and responses are
available for live marking, any responses in your simulation worklist are automatically
removed.

Refreshing your data

As you use RM Assessor the screens are refreshed and updated automatically with the
most up-to-date data. All your data is refreshed every 15 minutes, and the marking
overview screen (and other overview screens if you are a team leader and/or
standardisation team member) is also updated when you navigate to them.
To see the time and date of the last refresh, pause your pointer over Online:

However, occasionally you might want to do a manual refresh. For example, you might
want to do this if you are waiting to be re-approved, you are waiting for a message from
your team leader, or for any reason you suspect that you are not looking at the most
up-to-date data.
To do a manual refresh, click the Refresh icon at the bottom of any screen:

If you are performing a task that involves regular navigation to and from the overview
screens then you may prefer speed of navigation in preference to the overview screen
data being kept fully up to date. An example may be:

 If you are both an examiner and a team leader for QIGs and are navigating
between different overviews.
As such it is possible to turn off the automatic refresh on navigation.

To turn off automatic refresh:

In the top right corner of the screen, click the ON button as shown below:

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 The button toggles to display OFF.
With the automatic refresh off, you can still manually refresh the overview screen as
described above.

Note: Each time you log into RM Assessor the automatic refresh is turned on, even if
you previously turned it off.

Log out
To log out of RM Assessor:
Do one of the following:
 Click Log off at the top right corner of any screen.

Note: By default when you log off a message asking you whether you are sure
that you wish to exit RM Assessor is displayed when you first use the programme.
To prevent this message from appearing the next time you exit the programme
clear the Always Ask check box.

 Close your browser using the Close button ( )

Note: Closing your browser does not save any changes to your work, any
unsaved marking will be lost by closing your browser.

 If you exit your browser using the Close button ( ) whilst on the Marking page,
you will see the following prompt:

Note: Please take into account that this pop-up message may read differently in
other browsers.

If you are sure you have not made any changes that may not have been saved, click
Leave Page. Otherwise, click Stay on Page and close all responses you were marking
to ensure that any marks you have entered are saved.

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Marking basics
Downloading responses to mark
On the Worklist page you can manually download as many responses as you like, up
to your concurrent limit.
If you have Auto Allocate turned on, then every time you finish marking a response
RM Assessor will automatically download the next one. This allows you to keep
marking without having to manually download responses to mark. Automatic
downloading while marking continues until you reach your concurrent limit. At this point
you will need to submit some fully marked responses to be able to continue.

To download a response to mark:

 On the Worklist page, click one of the following:
 Click New response and a single response is downloaded to your worklist.
Repeat this process until you reach your concurrent limit.

 On the New response drop down list (if enabled), click Download to
Concurrent Limit. Multiple responses up to your concurrent limit, or marking
target if lower, are downloaded.

Note: If RM Assessor has nothing available for you to mark it displays an appropriate
message. This may occur if all responses have been marked, or if RM Assessor is
waiting for more scanned responses to be loaded. Contact the assessment officer
responsible for your subject for advice if you get the message and you are a long way
from your marking target.

Opening responses
You can open responses for marking either from the Home page or the Worklist page.
You can open multiple responses at a time, but it is good practice not to open too many
as you may find that this slows RM Assessor down (depending on a variety of factors
including the specification of your computer and the speed of your internet connection).
The recommended maximum is 5.
Each time you open a response a new tab is added to the Marking page. The visible
response is the one whose tab is highlighted.

26
The number of tabs that can display at a time depends on your screen resolution. To
display an open response for which you can't currently see a tab, select it from the
drop-down list to the right of the tabs.

Responses remain open until you close them, either manually or automatically by
submitting a marked response.
You can view all responses allocated to you, including those you have already marked
and submitted, at any time until the end of the session. When you first open a response
from your worklist, or if you are marking a structured response and you click the Full
Response View button, the response is in view or read-only mode; that is, it is locked
so you cannot mark it, only view it. It is safest to view responses in view mode to
ensure that you do not accidentally alter marks.

To view a response:
1. On the Worklist page, select either Open responses or Closed responses.
 Select Open responses to see a list of the responses you are currently
marking.
 Select Closed responses to see a list of the responses you have marked and
submitted. Any responses you have submitted that are within the grace period
are marked as Pending in the Status column and may be altered. Responses
marked as Closed cannot be changed.
2. To open a response, either double-click it or select it then click Mark response.
3. If you want to open multiple responses, you can use Ctrl+click (to select multiple
non-adjacent responses) or Shift+click (to select a range of responses) then click
Mark response.

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Booklet view
Booklet view is available when you are marking unstructured responses.
When booklet view is turned on, two consecutive response pages are displayed side-
by-side on your screen, as in a paper booklet.

In booklet view the thumbnails are highlighted in pairs on the left side of the screen.
When you click another thumbnail a new pair of pages is displayed. You can also click
the bottom left or right corners of the booklet to display the previous or next pair of
pages respectively.

To display or hide booklet view:

 On the toolbar, click Booklet View.
You can manipulate the booklet image as described in Zooming images.

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Partial page suppression
This is an optional function that IB may choose to use. It allows selected information on
a page to be suppressed.
For example, a page may contain information useful to you in the marking process and
the candidate's identity, which needs to be kept hidden. The hidden part is shaded in
grey as shown below.

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Messages
Every time you log into RM Assessor and before you start marking, you should check if
you have any messages from team leaders or other examiners.
You may also receive automatic messages from RM Assessor informing you when
administrative changes have been made that affect your marking. For example, a
change to your marking target or to tolerances for a component.
It is sometimes necessary to put a response in your worklist on hold or even remove it
from your worklist when a problem is found in the images. You will receive automatic
messages from RM Assessor to tell you when this happens.
The New Messages filter on the Home page shows whether you have any messages.

To view messages:
4. Optionally, click the New Messages filter to show only those QIGs that have new
messages.
5. Click the Messages icon for a QIG to open your messages Inbox on the
relevant Worklist page. Here is an example:

To read a message, you can simply select it and read the preview at the bottom of
the window.

Note: To mark a message as Read, you either need to double-click on it to open it

in a new window, or select it then click Mark as read. By default, messages are
listed in descending Last Updated order so that the newest message is always
displayed at the top of the list.

Sending a message from the Marking page

This is the best way to send a message about a particular response as the response is
automatically referenced in your message.

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To send a message from the Marking page:
1. Open the response you want to reference.
2. At the top of the screen, click the New Message button ( ). The email form is
displayed.

3. Your team leader will already be shown as the recipient in the To box, and you
can't change this.
Details of the associated response are automatically added.
Select a priority of Normal or Important if you wish. Only IB can send a message
with a priority of Mandatory.
Enter a subject and message text.
4. Click Send to send the message.
Notice that a drop-down list now appears in the message column for the response in
your worklist. This drop-down shows the number of messages, and you can click to
select a message to view.

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 Sending a message from a worklist
To send a message:
1. On the Worklist page, click Messaging in the left-hand navigation bar then click
New Message. The message form is displayed.

2. Your team leader will already be shown as the recipient in the To box, and you
can't change this.
Select a priority of Normal or Important if you wish. Only IB can send a message
with a priority of Mandatory.
Enter a subject for your message along with message text
3. Click Send to send your message.

To forward a message:
1. From the Worklist page click Messaging in the left-hand navigation bar and open
the message you wish to forward.

2. Click the forward button.

3. In the To box add a one or more recipients, and then click Send.

Getting approval to mark

The approval process
To mark and submit live responses in RM Assessor you must be approved to mark.
 Your approval status is initially set to Not Approved. This prevents you from
submitting live candidate responses to mark.
 You will be given a number of practice responses to mark and submit before you
are allowed to proceed to the next stage.
 You will then be given a number of qualification responses to mark and submit.
Subject to your standard of marking, RM Assessor will automatically approve you to
mark.

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 Note: You can only start the approval process on a QIG when the Standardisation
Setup is complete.

The process to gain approval to mark using RM Assessor is:

 Mark and submit practice responses. These must be submitted before you can
start the next step.
 Mark and submit the qualification sample. These responses must be submitted
before you can be auto approved for live marking.
RM Assessor automatically assesses your qualification sample, in which case one of
these conditions will apply:
 You mark everything accurately and your status changes automatically to
Approved. Your status in the Marking Home page changes to Live Marking and
the status in Your QIG information box in the WorkList screen changes to
Approved.
 Your marking is not within tolerance and you will receive feedback and a second
qualification sample from a team leader. Your status remains as Not Approved.

Practice marking
This is provided to help you learn the markscheme and any marking instructions. You
can compare your own marks with the principal examiner’s definitive marks to see how
you should be marking and why. Practice marking must be submitted, but is not
assessed by RM Assessor.
You will see a practice target via the Progress column on the Marking home page and
via the Your QIG information box.
When you are marking practice responses, further practice responses are obtained and
displayed automatically (up to your practice target) every time you finish marking the
current response – you do not need to make a request.

To start practice marking:

1. In the Marking Home page, highlight the QIG you want to mark as practice
marking.
2. Click Start Marking. The response opens in marking mode and any comments
created by the principal examiner are shown.
3. Mark the response. A green icon appears next to any of your marks that match the
definitive marks.

33
When you have finished marking, some of your marks may not match the definitive
marks. In the example shown above two questions don’t match the definitive marks
a red icon appears next to any of the marks that do not match the definitive marks.
You can check the definitive marks and annotations to see what your marks should
have been by clicking the Show Definitive Marks link in the marks panel.

With the Definitive marks showing the overall accuracy is shown, your marks and
the definitive marks are shown, your annotations and the definitive annotations are
shown on the response and also the question level accuracy is shown in the marks
panel.

34
Qualification marking
Note: You must mark and submit all practice responses before you can start
qualification marking.

You must download the first qualification response to mark; RM Assessor will
automatically download the next response into the Marking screen when you have
completed marking the previous response. You can manually download all your
qualification responses should you wish.
Unlike practice marking, qualification marking is assessed automatically by RM
Assessor.
You are required to mark and submit all qualification responses.
Once you have marked and submitted your qualification responses you can access
the submitted qualification responses in your closed responses worklist and
compare your marks and annotations to the definitively marked responses. A green
icon appears next to any of your marks that match the definitive marks and a red icon
next to any of your marks that do not match the definitive marks.

To access the closed qualification responses:

1. Click on the Closed responses in the Worklist screen

2. Open the submitted qualification response(s) by double clicking on the selected

response. The definitive marks and annotations show as the default view.

Second qualification
A team leader will issue you with a second qualification sample to mark if the
responses submitted during 1st qualification are not marked within the required
tolerance. The second qualification responses, when downloaded, appear in your work
list with red icons next to them, and are named 2nd qualification.

Waiting for approval

After submitting your first qualification sample, one of these conditions will apply:
 You are automatically approved by RM Assessor, and you can start marking and
submitting responses immediately.
 You are waiting for a team leader to provide feedback and issue a second
qualification sample.
After submitting your second qualification sample, one of these conditions will apply:
 You are automatically approved by RM Assessor, and you can start marking and
submitting responses immediately.
 You are waiting for the IB Assessment Centre to contact you to let you know
whether you can be approved for marking, or whether you will not be offered any
live marking for the session.

Seeding responses
IB use a system called seeding, in which responses with known marks are inserted into
your flow of work. Seeding responses are not identified to you, but are tagged with
yellow icons in your team leader’s view of your worklist. They are used by IB to ensure
that you continue to mark to the correct standard.

35
 When seeding is used you can access a report called the 'Marking - Daily Seeding
Feedback 'report to compare your marking to the definitive marks set. The report shows
how many questions in your seeding responses for a particular QIG have marks that
exactly match the definitive marks and how many have marks that are either under or
over the definitive marks. Where there is a difference in the marking an average
deviation mark is provided. However, this report is now a supplement as you are now
able to view the definitive marks and annotations for seeds submitted both within and
outside of tolerance.

To access the Marking - Daily Seeding Feedback report:

1. Open the worklist for a particular QIG and click the Reports button at the top of the
screen
2. In the reports list click Marking - Daily Seeding Feedback.
3. Enter your search criteria and then click Execute Report Now.

Quality feedback
IB may use a marking quality assurance mechanism within RM Assessor known as
seeding.
If Quality Feedback is enabled and you submit a seeding response that is marked
outside of the required tolerance you will receive a message informing you that it is
outside of tolerance and that feedback is available.

Note: If a seed is among a group of responses being submitted, a seed marked

outside of tolerance prevents the other responses from being submitted and these
remain in your open worklist.

The feedback enables you to identify where your marking deviates from the required
standard, and it also enables you to apply this learning to future marking.
You must review and accept feedback before you can carry on marking and submitting
responses for the QIG.
Also, every time you submit a seeding response that is within tolerance, the
response goes straight into your Closed responses within your Quality Feedback
work list, and you can view it if you wish, along with the definitive marks and
annotations.
To access quality feedback, go to the relevant Worklist page and click Quality
Feedback in the left-hand navigation bar.

A list of Open responses, if any, is displayed. These are responses for which you have
received quality feedback, and you must accept this feedback before you can continue
marking this QIG. For each response in the list you can see your marks total, the
difference between your total marks and the total definitive marks, and whether you
have accepted feedback or not.
You can open responses to view, but not mark, while you have feedback outstanding.

36
 When you open the feedback response the question items you marked within tolerance
and those outside of tolerance are identified. The definitive marks are also displayed.
All annotations relating to the definitive marks are shown in grey. An example is shown
below:

Note: The display may alter slightly depending on the method of calculating response
accuracy used.

To continue marking the QIG, you are required to accept the feedback by clicking on
the Accept Quality Feedback button.

This is located under the marks panel, you are then required to follow all on-screen
instructions. Accepted feedback responses are moved to Closed responses on the
Quality Feedback page.

Viewing Current and Previous Annotations

If you are viewing a closed practice, qualification or seed response and comparing your
marks against the definitive marks you may sometimes be unable to see all of the definitive
annotations if your current annotations have been stamped over the top of them.
You can turn off the visibility of the current annotations or definitive annotations depending
which ones you would like to view by clicking the button below on the top toolbar and
selecting to ‘hide’.

37
 The button ‘Show/Hide Current Annotations’ is also available to show/hide annotations
on any response. In a case of a response with multiple sets of marks, each set of
annotations can be shown or hidden independently.

Pending Review status

RM Assessor performs automated marking quality checks and determines if you are no
longer marking to the required standard. If this is the case you could be stopped from
marking with a status of Pending Review.
If this happens your status will show as Pending Review and you will no longer be
able to download or submit responses.
A team leader will offer you advice in the first instance and will restore your approval to
continue with live marking.
If you are stopped for a second time you will be contacted by your assessment
operations officer responsible for your subject.

Marking structured and unstructured responses

You mark structured and unstructured responses in different ways using the same tools
in RM Assessor.
Structured responses are examination papers on which candidates write their
answers in known and predictable places. Images are usually cut from whole pages of
a candidate’s scanned response and at any particular time you only see the answer the
candidate made for the selected question item. Only the parts of the response that are
associated with the selected question item are displayed. This may include additional,
linked pages.

However, you can still choose to view (but not mark) the full response and scroll
through pages if needed by clicking Full Response View at the top of the marking
page, as shown in the following example.

38
When clicking Full Response View, you can see all the pages in the response and
scroll through it but you cannot mark in this view. To return to normal view and continue
marking, click Structured Response View:-

Unstructured responses, also referred to as essays or longform, are examination

papers on which candidates are permitted to write their answers in any order. As a
result, it is not possible for RM Assessor to map the question item in the question list to
the corresponding response items provided by the candidates.
This is illustrated in the example below where question item 2a(i) is selected but the
image displayed is for question 1a(i). You therefore need to select the question item
that matches the response item being marked or vice versa.

The RM Assessor default setting for unstructured responses is to maintain the currently
displayed image when you select a different question item. If preferred you can reset
the currently displayed image to the first image (page) of a response when you select a
different question item. The setting is Reset Unstructured Image on Changing
Question (see Setting your marking preferences).

39
Full Response View
Full Response View is only applicable to structured responses; it helps you mark a
structured response when a candidate has written outside a page boundary away from
the area where the response should be written, or has responded to a question in
several different places.
To switch to Full Response View click the Full Response View button. Here is an
example:

Note: When you click Full Response View this stops you marking if you were in
marking mode and displays all pages. Notice also that Link Page tickboxes appear
beneath each thumbnail and the annotations toolbar is no longer visible.

Using Full Response View you can:

 Navigate and see outside the boundary of the displayed page.
 Use the Link Page tickbox beneath each thumbnail to assign pages to a question
item. You might want to do this if a candidate has written an answer on more than
one page, or has provided some additional information on another page.
To return to normal view (in the previously selected mode: either marking mode or view
mode) click Structured Response View.

Rotate tool
Sometimes candidates turn the answer booklet on its side and write at 90 degrees to
the usual text flow. Use this tool to rotate images with text written in this way.

Click this tool to rotate an image clockwise by 90 degrees.

Click this tool to rotate an image anti-clockwise by 90 degrees.

Note:
(1) Unstructured response images, rotated in any mode, remain so until you log out.
(2) When you rotate an image, the thumbnail rotates to match.

Link tool
The link tool applies only to structured responses; it allows you to assign pages to a
question item on a particular response, for example if a candidate has used an
additional piece of paper to complete a question item.

To link a page to a question item:

1. In an open structured response in marking mode, click Full Response View.
2. Select a question item to which you want to link a scanned page.
3. Navigate to the page containing the corresponding answer.

40
 4. Tick the Link Page tickbox beneath the thumbnail for the page (in order to see this
better, you might want to expand the thumbnails by moving the divider bar).

Notice that a link icon is added beneath the thumbnail and also against the question
in the mark input panel.

Note: The link is only made to the scanned page and not to a particular area on
the page.

5. Repeat the procedure from step 3 to link more than one page to the same question
item.

Note: You can link the same page to more than one question item if necessary.

6. Click Structured Response View to continue marking. When you select a linked
question item in the mark input panel, the linked page(s) are displayed.

To remove a link:
1. Click Full Response View.
2. Scroll down the thumbnails until you find the page with the link you want to remove.
3. Untick the Link Page tickbox beneath the thumbnail.

Navigation
In this section you will learn how to:
 Navigate between responses
 Mark by question or candidate
 Size and zoom a displayed response
 Navigate around a displayed response

Auto-advancing to the next response

When the Auto Advance option is selected and you finish marking the current
response (i.e the response becomes 100% marked), RM Assessor automatically loads
the next available response. This is useful, but it can cause confusion when you are
marking unstructured responses if candidates have answered the questions out of
order. If you don't want RM Assessor to move on automatically when you finish marking
a response, you can disable auto advance.

41
To turn auto advance on and off:
The easiest way to turn Auto Advance on and off is to use the Auto Advance button
in the Marking page (shown turned on below).

Alternatively, you can change your user options as follows:

1. Click the Controls icon at the top of the page and select User Options.

2. The User Options dialog box is displayed.

3. Tick or untick Auto Advance as required.

4. Click OK. This now becomes the default setting.

Moving between responses

Using the Previous Response and Next Response buttons on the toolbar you can
navigate to the next or previous response in the currently selected worklist, while you
remain in the Marking page.

When you use these buttons on a structured response, the screen shows the currently
selected item for each response.

Moving between question items

There are three methods of moving between question items in the mark input panel:
 Press Enter after you have entered a mark. This moves you to the next question
item to be marked.
 Click a particular question item in the marks panel.
 Use the arrow buttons at the bottom of the mark input panel to move up and down
the list of question items.

42
Note: In structured responses the appropriate part of the candidate's response for the
question item you select is automatically displayed. This is not the case in
unstructured responses where you have to find the appropriate part of the candidate's
response after you select a question item.

Moving between QIGs

You can only have one QIG open at a time. If you have a QIG open and you are on
either the Worklist or Marking page, you can click Home to return to the Home page,
but the QIG will remain open. You will see a 'Back to' link at the top of the Home page
that enables you to return to the open QIG, as shown in this example:

If a QIG is already open with responses open for marking, and you try to open a
different QIG from the Home page, you will see this message:

Click Yes to save all changes in the open responses for the currently selected QIG and
then close it and open the new QIG. Click No to return to the Home page without
opening the new QIG.
To close a QIG along with all open responses and return to the Home page, close the
relevant Worklist page by clicking the cross on its tab.

Marking by question or candidate

Mark by candidate is the default setting when you first enter marking mode. It enables
you to enter marks for all the question items on a candidate’s response for a particular
QIG before RM Assessor loads the next candidate response for marking.

43
You may, however, prefer to mark the same question on all responses allocated to you
before moving onto the next question.

To mark by question:

Note: In order to mark by question, you also need to turn on Auto Advance,
otherwise turning on Mark By Question will have no effect. Turning Auto-Allocate on
is also recommended.

 In marking mode, click the Mark by: Question button on the toolbar, and also
ensure that Auto Advance is turned on.

When you enter a mark and press Enter, notice that the selected question item
stays the same but RM Assessor has opened the next response. If there are no
more responses in your worklist RM Assessor downloads one (automatically if
Auto Allocate is on) and opens it. This process is repeated as you continue
marking, until your concurrent limit is reached, at which point RM Assessor loads
the next question item on the first response in the list.

To return to marking by candidate:

 In marking mode, click the Mark by: Candidate button on the toolbar, and turn off
Auto Advance if required.

Resizing the marks and thumbnails panels

You can resize the thumbnails panel and the mark input panel by clicking and dragging
the divider bars:

To resize a panel:
1. Position your pointer over the divider line at the right of the thumbnails panel or at
the left of the marking panel until the double-headed arrows appear.
2. Click and drag the divider line to a new location.

44
For example, here is the same thumbnails panel displayed at different sizes, depending
on where you drag the divider line.

You can resize the mark input panel in similar fashion.

Zooming images
The default Marking page view is set to ‘fit width’, which is fine for marking structured
responses in most instances. However, if you are marking unstructured responses, in
which whole page images are displayed, and you have a higher resolution computer
screen, you can take advantage of the ‘fit height’ default setting to be able to view the
whole page.
Structured responses only: It is good practice to go through the first response you
mark to set up the zoom and position settings for each item. These settings are then
used when displaying every other response for the QIG that you are marking.

45
Controls on the bottom toolbar are available to allow you to size, rotate, and zoom in
and out of images.

Use these controls as follows:

Fit Click this tool to fit the width of the page to the viewing window. This is
Width the default view, and works for all screen sizes and resolutions.
Fit Click this tool to fit the height of the response in the viewing window. If
Height your screen is large enough this is the best mode for marking essay style
questions.
Zoom Click this tool, and then click the image at the point you want to centre
In to the expansion. Each click expands the image by 20%. To deselect the
point tool, click it again.

Fixed Click this tool to apply the default zoom setting to the image you are
Zoom currently viewing. In structured responses the zoom setting is
automatically applied to the corresponding image in all responses that
make up the QIG.
To change the default setting, use any of the other tools to set the
desired zoom level and then from the Fixed Zoom pop-up, click Save
current zoom level as the default zoom as shown below.

Slider Click and drag the slider to zoom in and out of the displayed image as
required.

% Select the required zoom level from the pop-up list, or change the %
zoom value in the box and then press Enter.

Moving around an image

To move around an image that is bigger than the viewing area use the scroll bars on
the right and bottom edges of the viewing area.
If your mouse is fitted with a wheel you can use it to scroll up and down an image or a
group of images. As you scroll up and down, the page number is displayed on the
vertical scroll bar:-

46
Page position indicator
The page position indicator is superimposed on thumbnails as shown in the following
example.

The page position indicator for the page that currently fills all or the majority of the
screen will be highlighted green.
The shaded area in the thumbnail panel shows the area of the response that is
currently displayed; in the example screen above, the shading spans two pages as the
examiner is scrolling down and can currently see the bottom of page 2 and top of page
3.

Page scrolling in structured responses

When this function is enabled you can toggle between the following two states:
 You can scroll between page images and the zoom setting is applied to all pages.
 You cannot scroll between pages and must click the thumbnails to see other pages.
You can apply a different zoom setting to each page.

47
 To toggle scrolling on and off:
 Click the following button (shown in the scrolling allowed state).

Page suppression
In RM Assessor the start page of a scanned response is usually page 2 of a
candidate’s script. Page 1 is suppressed to maintain confidentiality, as it is often the
coversheet which contains information that identifies the candidate.

Annotations
Annotations can be used to indicate specific points on responses, for example a tick to
indicate a correct answer or a cross to indicate an incorrect answer. The annotations
available for use are set up for the type of examination being marked. The annotations
available for your subject are available within the subject specific guidance document
which will be made available on the IBIS E-marking page.
Once inserted, annotations remain fixed to a candidate’s response. However, at any
time prior to submission you can remove or make changes to the annotations on a
response. It is also possible to amend an annotation once the response has been
submitted and is within the grace period.
It is possible to use annotations to generate marks for an item.
The order in which annotations are displayed can be set to either frequency of use or
annotation name (see Error! Reference source not found.).

48
Types of annotation
Closer to the examination session a list of annotations for your component will be
available in the subject specific guidance document available on IBIS. There will also
be an explanation of the meaning of the annotation.
There are two main types of annotation:
 Static annotations – those with a fixed size and shape, such as a tick or a cross.

 Dynamic annotations – those with grab handles that can be re-sized and
manipulated in a variety of ways. For example, you might have a highlighter
annotation that you can re-colour and stretch over a section of text, or different
types of line or shapes.

Annotations can also be configured for marking and counting as shown below:
 Marking and counting annotations - those that display the marks assigned to the
annotation (if none, then a hyphen displays as in the example below) as well as the
number of times the annotation has been used on the selected response question
item.

Note: When a drop-down list is visible at the right-hand end of the toolbar you can
click it to display more annotations.

Accessing annotations
Annotations only appear on the Marking Tools toolbar when you are in marking mode,
and are located to the right of the marking tools.

If you require more screen area you can undock (or float on the page) the Marking and
Annotation Tools toolbar.

To undock the Marking and Annotation Tools toolbar:

 Click the Undock button on the toolbar.

You can also temporarily undock the Marking and Annotation Tools toolbar by
clicking and holding down the F2 key on your keyboard.

49
 To dock the Marking and Annotation Tools palette:
 Click the docking icon on the floating toolbar:
 :

Click Show annotations count icon to see a count of how many times each
annotation has been used on the response currently being marked:-

Clicking the Hide annotations count icon resets the palette to its previous state.
Once undocked you can re-size the floating toolbar to the width of a single annotation. This is
useful when marking in booklet mode and you want to position the toolbar in the middle of the
two displayed pages.
It is also possible to hide the default annotations (ruler, protractor & multi-line overlay). This
will free up space on the annotations bar if these items are not required for marking the
current response.

This setting can only be changed while the annotations panel is docked but it will persist when
un-docked.

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Annotation colours
The same colour is always applied to all marking annotations. The default colour when
marking live responses is red, as shown in the following example:

When re-marking a response the colour of your annotations will automatically change,
the colour will depend on the type of remark being carried out to distinguish them from
the original examiner’s annotations.

Adding, moving and removing annotations

Annotations are only available when you are in marking mode on the Marking page.

Note: If you cannot see the annotations on the Marking Tools toolbar it is probably
because you are not in marking mode. Click Start Marking to go into marking mode.

To add an annotation:
1. Ensure you are in marking mode.
2. Do one of the following:
 Click an annotation on the toolbar.
 Use the annotations toolbar as follows:
a. Press and hold the F2 key. The annotations toolbar appears wherever your
cursor is positioned.

To reposition the toolbar, while it is visible, click-and-hold its header bar and
drag it, or start again with your cursor in a different position.
b. Click an annotation on the toolbar.
c. Release the F2 key.
Notice that your cursor turns into the annotation.

Note: Your cursor remains loaded with the selected annotation until the Pointer

or another annotation is selected.

3. Click anywhere on the image to add the selected annotation. Notice that each time
you click on the image another annotation is added.

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4. When you have finished adding annotations, click the Pointer on the
Marking Tools toolbar.
5. OR use the annotation shortcut keys to select your annotation
 Press the number key associated or
 Press (Ctrl Alt + number)
The annotations associated with the shortcut keys will be outlined in the subject
specific guidance.

To move an annotation:

1. Ensure that the Pointer is selected as your cursor.

2. Click and drag the annotation to a new position.

To change the annotation in use:

 Click another annotation on the toolbar or on the annotations toolbar.

To delete a single annotation:

 Right-click the annotation and then click Remove Annotation.

To delete all annotations on a response item:

 In the marking controls, click Reset, though note that this will also remove the mark
for the selected response item and set it back to 'not marked'.

Modifying annotations
Note: You can only modify annotations after you have selected the question item with
which they are associated, so that they are displayed normally (not faded).
Annotations that are faded cannot be modified – to modify them you need to select
the question item with which they are associated.

A mistake examiners sometimes make, when marking unstructured responses in RM

Assessor, is to assign annotations to the wrong question item.
As an example, the picture below shows two inaccessible tick annotations on item
1a(ii), with question item 1a(ii) selected in the marks panel. In this example the
annotations and marks were mistakenly assigned to question item 1a(i).

To modify incorrectly assigned annotations:

1. Select the question item with the incorrectly assigned marks and annotations.
2. Remove the marks and annotations.
3. Re-mark as required.

To remove a set of annotations:

1. Select the question item you want to modify.

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2. Click the Reset button. The old marks and annotations are discarded and you can
now mark the question again.

Toggle annotation visibility

This functionality allows you to selectively hide one or more sets of annotations that
may be obscuring a candidate's answer.

To hide or display current annotations:

 On the annotations toolbar, toggle the hide/display annotations button.
= annotations visible, = annotations hidden (one or more sets)

Floating the marking and annotations toolbar

Use a floating toolbar when you want the marking tools and annotations close to where
you are working, or when you want to maximise the size of the viewing area. You can
either temporarily float the toolbar or you can 'undock' the toolbar so it remains floating
until you choose to dock it again.

To temporarily float the toolbar to see the annotations palette:

 Click and hold down the F2 key on your keyboard. The toolbar disappears and a
floating palette appears.

To remove the floating toolbar, release the F2 key.

To move a floating toolbar:

 Click-and-hold anywhere in the header in the floating toolbar, and then drag the
toolbar to another position on the screen.

Re-ordering annotations in the toolbar

Re-ordering annotations in the toolbar only applies when the user option Order
Annotation by Frequency has been selected (see Error! Reference source not
found.).
Annotations re-order automatically every time you open a new response, so that those
you have used most frequently appear on the left.
Annotations will not re-order as you add annotations to a particular response during
marking, but you can manually re-order at any time using the Re-order the
annotations toolbar option on the drop-down menu to the left of the toolbar.

Annotations with assigned values

IB may assign values to annotations, and may require you to mark solely by adding
these annotations to each candidate's response instead of entering marks directly.

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Let’s say an examiner has applied two different annotations against question item 2a,
indicating that a markscheme key point or issue is correctly covered by the candidate. If
the maximum mark for the question is 2, and each of the stamped annotations is worth
1 mark, the Marks for the question will display 2/2.
This is illustrated in the following example screen.

Note: If you try to add annotations that are worth more than the maximum marks
allowed for the question, RM Assessor will display a warning and prevent you from
doing so.

Annotation counts
It is possible to display a count of the number of times an annotation has been used for
a question item. As you add annotations RM Assessor counts up the number of
annotations of each type for each question and displays the count beneath the
annotation on the annotations toolbar, along with the marks that the annotation is
worth.
You can see this in the example shown below. In this case one C1 annotation worth 1
mark, and two A1 annotations each worth 1 mark, has been added against the selected
question item.

54
 You can control whether or not you see annotation counts either by using the Hide
annotations count option on the drop-down menu to the left of the toolbar or the
button on the floating toolbar.

Recording marks
For each QIG, IB defines how you can record marks. There are essentially two ways to
record marks:
 Enter marks directly in the mark input panel, and also optionally add annotations.
Using this method, you may be required to add annotations to demonstrate that you
have checked specific aspects of each candidate's response, but you must also
enter marks in the mark input panel.
 Mark by annotation only. Using this method, you must add annotations that have
assigned values to each response, and these marks are automatically assigned to
the relevant question items and totalled. The mark entry field in the mark input
panel is not available so you cannot use it to enter marks.

Entering marks
If the paper you are marking has been set up so that you manually enter a mark, as
opposed to using annotations with assigned values to enter your marks, you must use
the mark entry box to enter marks. The mark entry box drop-down list shows all the
valid marks for the selected question item.

55
As you mark, the total marks awarded so far and the percentage marked display at the
top of the mark input panel. For each question, you can see the marks you have
awarded and the total available.
Click Show All if you want to see all question items in the mark input panel (that is, you
can see 1a, 1b and 1c in Q1; 2a, 2b and 2c in Q2; and so on). Click Hide All if you only
want to see question items within the selected question.
You can correct marks at any time prior to submission of a response and during the
grace period.
If you attempt to enter an invalid mark RM Assessor will prompt you to correct the error.
An error message similar to this is displayed.

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To enter marks:
1. Use one of the following methods:
 Type a value in the mark
control. If you enter an
invalid value, a message
will inform you of this

 Select a value from the

mark control drop-down
list

 Click the No Response

button. For NR type # or
/ as a short cut.

2. Press Enter to record the mark and move to the next question item.

Note: If you choose the user preference Assign Single Digit Marks Without
Pressing Enter Key, and you are only entering numeric values between 0 and 9,
you do not need to press Enter.

Marking by annotation only

An annotation can be assigned a mark value and used to mark a response, and the
number of times an annotation is used on a response item can be displayed. For some
components you may be asked to mark exclusively by using annotations, and the
ability to enter marks by keying in specific values will be unavailable.

To mark by annotation only:

1. Select a question item in the mark input panel.
2. If marking an unstructured response, find the associated response item (image). If
marking a structured response, only the associated response item will be displayed
so you don't need to find it.
3. Add annotations to the image. The marks awarded for the selected question are
shown in the mark input panel, but you cannot input marks directly.

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 4. Repeat the process until you have marked all questions.

To remove a set of annotations:

1. Select the question item you want to modify.
2. Click the Reset button. The old marks and annotations are discarded and you can
now mark the question again.

Finding a question number from an annotation

During marking you may want to know the question number to which you applied a
particular annotation.

To find the question number from an applied annotation:

 Hover your pointer over the annotation. The question itemis displayed as a tool tip.

Modifying marks
You can modify the marks of any responses you have not yet submitted or any
responses you have submitted that are pending (i.e. you have submitted them but they
are within the grace period set by the IB Assessment Centre).

To modify marks:
1. Open the response in marking mode.
2. Select the question item you want to change.
3. Depending whether you are marking by manual mark entry or by adding
annotations that have assigned mark values, either modify the marks displayed in
the mark input panel (as shown below) or add and remove annotations as required.

58
Resetting a mark to ‘not marked’
Unmarked questions have a hyphen symbol in the question item list. You can reset any
marked response item back to this status.
You may want to do this to prevent a response from being submitted accidentally while
you decide what to do with the question.

Note: This is very different from awarding zero marks or entering a ‘no response’, as
a response cannot be submitted until all question items have a mark (zero and no
response count as marks).

To reset a response item to ‘not marked’:

1. Select the response item to correct.
2. Press the Delete key on your keyboard (if the mark is selected) or the Backspace
key on your keyboard (if the cursor is positioned after the mark). This will remove
the incorrect mark in the mark control. A hyphen replaces your mark.
3. Alternatively, you can click Reset, though note that this will also remove any
annotations that you have applied to the response item.

Saving and closing marked responses

Any changes you have made to marks and annotations are saved and a response is
closed when you do any of these things in the Marking page:
 Click Save & Close

 Click the cross on the response's tab. This has the same effect as Save & Close

59
 Move between candidate responses, either automatically when you finish marking a
response and Auto Advance is turned on, or manually using the Next and
Previous buttons

 Click Stop Marking to stop marking a response

 Click Submit Response to submit a response
 Log off from RM Assessor
If you do something which might mean you will lose unsaved changes, you will always
be prompted to save the changes. For example, if you close a worklist (which also
closes all open responses from the worklist) by clicking the cross on the tab:

You will see the following prompt if there are unsaved changes:

Click Yes to save your changes and close all responses, or No to keep the worklist
open.
Similarly, if you are marking and choose to go to the Home page and then switch to
another QIG, you will see a warning message and can choose whether you want to
save any changes to responses in the current QIG and then close them.
If you exit your browser using the Close button ( ) whilst on the Marking page, you
will see the following prompt:

Note: Closing your browser does not save any changes to your work, any unsaved
marking will be lost by closing your browser.

If you are sure you have not made any unsaved changes, click Leave Page.
Otherwise, click Stay on Page and close all responses you were marking to ensure
that any marks you have entered are saved.

Note: Marks are only returned to the IB Assessment Centre when a submitted
response is closed, after the grace period has expired.

60
Submitting responses
A response must be 100 per cent marked before you can submit it. This means that
you must enter a valid mark or NR next to every question item in the RIG you are
marking, as shown in this example:

Marking progress is shown in the mark input panel of the marking page, as shown in
the example above, and in the worklist, as shown below.

You can submit marked responses either from an open worklist in the Worklist page or
from the Marking page.

Note: You will not be able to submit a response if it has an open exception of a type
that prevents submission. When you try to submit the response, a message will
display if this is the case.

To submit one or more marked responses from a worklist:

1. Highlight the response or responses you want to submit.

Note: You can use Ctrl and click to select multiple non-adjacent responses, or
Shift and click to select a range of adjacent responses.

2. Click the Submit Response drop-down menu on the toolbar and select Submit
selected responses.

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 A confirmation message is displayed.

3. Click Yes to submit the response(s).

To submit all 100% marked responses from a worklist:

1. From an open worklist in the Worklist page, click the Submit Response drop-
down menu and select Submit completed responses.

2. A confirmation message is displayed.

3. Click Yes to submit the responses.

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 To submit the current response from the Marking page:
1. As soon as an open response is 100% marked, you can click the Submit button in
the toolbar to submit it.

The marks you have awarded will be saved before the submit occurs.

Note: If you want to submit responses from the Marking page as you finish
marking them, you need to turn off Auto Advance. If Auto Advance is on, then
as soon as you finish marking each response you will be moved on to the next
response before you have had a chance to submit the current response.

Changing marks after submission

You can change the marks of any submitted response during a limited grace period
when its status is Pending. Once the grace period has expired and the status is closed
you are unable to change submitted marks.

Advanced marking
Additional pages
An additional page might be attached to an answer booklet if a candidate has
continued their answer outside of the answer booklet. Both sides of the additional page
are scanned, and are associated with the candidate’s normal scanned response.
When you open a response with additional pages a message is displayed to notify you
that there are additional pages attached to the response which must be taken into
account when marking.

Alternative marking features

A variety of markscheme, types, input and presentation methods are configurable in
RM Assessor by IB. You will be advised when an alternative marking feature is in use.

Question totals
Where an examination contains question items that comprise a number of sub-items,
RM Assessor displays the sub-totals for each question in the mark input panel on the
Marking page.

63
In the example screen notice that the total marks awarded so far for the response and
the percentage marked so far are shown at the top of the mark input panel. Alongside
each question, and each item within each question, sub-totals of the marks awarded
and the possible marks are shown.

Optional questions
When a question paper includes optional questions, for example ‘answer any two of the
following five questions’, one of these situations may occur:
 A candidate has offered no answer to a question.
 A candidate has answered more than the required number of questions.
 If a candidate has attempted more than the prescribed number of questions within a
paper or section of a paper, mark all the answers. RM Assessor will use the marks
of those answers that have the highest mark, up to the prescribed number of
questions for the paper or section of the paper.
To record that an optional question has not been attempted:
1. Select each question item in turn and click No Response. NR is entered against
each item.

Note By clicking on the Complete button, you can set all unanswered question
items to NR in one go.

To mark where a candidate has answered more than the required number of
questions:
If a candidate has answered more than the required number of questions, you should
mark all of the answers. The answers with the highest marks will be used towards the
total marks.

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Unanswered questions
Some examinations allow candidates to answer a defined number of questions from a
list of questions. In this case some questions will not be answered and you must enter
NR against each of those questions. To save marker time a Complete button can be
used that allows you to enter NR in all unanswered questions with one click.

To enter NR for all unanswered questions:

1. Click the Complete button. A warning message is displayed:

2. Click Yes to continue. NR is entered against all unanswered questions. If the Auto
Advance marking preference is turned on the next RIG is opened for marking.
RM Assessor will show a new warning message to an examiner when a No Response
(“NR”) has been assigned to all question items in the RIG. The purpose of this new
message (below) is to ensure that assigning NR to all question items in a RIG is not in
error.

Note: For some QIGs it will not be possible to utilise the Complete Button until the
minimum required questions have been marked. The warning message below will
be displayed.

65
Marking atypical responses
There are two types of atypical response:
 Scannable – these are responses that can be scanned, but they are different from
regular responses so have been scanned as a special job. Common examples are
a transcript or an oversized script.
 Unscannable – for example a Braille script, or a response where the candidate has
used a very light pencil that the scanner can't pick up. In this case a placeholder
image is displayed by RM Assessor. You are given the physical script to mark and
key the marks into RM Assessor as normal.
Atypical responses always download for you to mark as whole papers in unstructured
mode, irrespective of whether they are structured or split up into multiple QIGs.
All atypical responses are allocated to a specific examiner to mark, and are not
automatically downloaded by RM Assessor. If you do have an atypical script within your
allocation the IB Assessment Centre will supply you with centre and candidate numbers
to enable you to find and download them manually. From then on the marking process
is very similar to marking any other response.

To download atypical responses:

1. In the left hand navigation bar on the Worklist page, select Marking and then
select Atypical Responses. A list of any atypical responses that you have
previously downloaded is displayed along with a search box.

2. To search for a new atypical response you have been asked to mark, in the search
box at the top of the page enter the centre and candidate numbers that the IB
Assessment Centre has given you, then click Search.
3. If the response can't be found, a message displays telling you so. Click OK to try
again.

66
 If the response is found, a message box displays.

4. If you want to mark the response now, click Mark Now. The response opens for
you to mark and is also downloaded into your atypical responses worklist.
If you want to download the response into your atypical responses worklist to mark
later, click Move to Worklist.
You mark and submit atypical responses in the same way as any other unstructured
live marking.

Marking zoned responses

When zoning is in use you may be allocated a specific group of questions to mark in a
given response instead of all questions. Although you will still be able to see all
questions your mark panel will only display the questions you have been allocated to
mark.
When you open a response containing unallocated questions you may encounter the
following message:

To deal with the Unknown Response Content Warning message:

1. Read the message and click OK.
2. On the menu bar, select Full Response View.
3. Scroll through the response to find the unknown content, indicated by shaded
areas.

67
4. Select the appropriate question to link the content to.
5. Select Link Page on the left. Notice that the link icon is displayed next to the
question in the marks panel, as shown in the example below.
6. On the menu bar, click Structured Response View to start marking.

Marks panel
In the marks panel you will see only the questions that have been allocated to you. In
the example below this comprises Q1 to Q7 only in a script of fourteen questions.

Note: Questions with the icon have no images associated with them.

Dealing with zoning errors

There are two exception types you can to select to help deal with zoning errors. These
are shown below:

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 Select the appropriate type of error and submit the exception.

Marking ecoursework in RM Assessor

In the Worklist screen, click on the New Response button to download a response to your
worklist; to open a response, either double-click on it or highlight it and click on Mark
response.

Or on the New response drop down list, click Download to Concurrent Limit.

Multiple responses up to your concurrent limit, or marking target if lower, will be downloaded.

Many ecoursework components comprise a mixture of materials, such as document, image,

video or audio files. When this is the case you will see an extra column in your worklist with
eye shaped icons as shown below.

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These icons indicate the following:

Icon Description
All or some ecoursework files are un-
viewed
All ecoursework files have been viewed

When you open a response, a list of the ecoursework files are displayed on the left-
hand side of the screen on the Files tab. The file names can be viewed as text in
sequence order using the default List option. You may find it more convenient to see
thumbnails of any image files in the list, in which case select the Icons option on the
Files tab. To see the list of images associated with a selected file, click the Images
tab...

Documents and images of supported file types are displayed in the marking window
and by default, video/audio files are opened in a player in the marking window. When
selected image files are not supported these are displayed in a new browser tab
outside of RM Assessor. The file name and other data associated with the selected e-
coursework file is always displayed in the left-hand lower box.
If required, you can view images files and listen to an audio file at the same time.

Notice in the screenshot above that the annotations are disabled as a video is being
played. This also applies to audio files.

70
 If you experience difficulty playing or viewing a file, contact the assessment
operations officer responsible for your subject or if you need to raise an exception,
click the next to the file item and select Report a problem. The Create
Exception form, is displayed and the file name is automatically added to the
exception comments. Exceptions for document files can be raised in the usual way

by pressing the raise exception button ( ) on the toolbar when you have the
response open on screen. The Create exception form will then be displayed and
can be populated accordingly:-

Note: You will not be able to submit a response until all files that are part of the
response has been viewed or listened to.

Re-marking
You may be asked to re-mark some candidate responses, for example following an
enquiry upon results. These responses are made available to you in a special Re-mark
work list. Your assessment officer will consult you before you are expected to perform
any re-marking.

Organising your work

The Worklist page is where you view and organise your work. It shows a summary of
your marking and provides access to the Marking page for the currently selected QIG
only.

71
 To ensure you can find the work you are looking for, make sure that:
 The correct QIG is selected.
 Open responses is selected to see all current work, or Closed responses is
selected to see marked and submitted responses.
You can use the tabs above the list area or in the left-hand navigation bar to find what
you want.
You can use the Worklist page to:
 View and open all of your marking (open, closed and pending)
 View messages
 Track and respond to exceptions
 Sort, filter, and tag responses

Sorting
Any sort you apply to a worklist is retained until you log out of RM Assessor, a
background refresh does not re-sort a worklist.

To sort responses and messages:

 In the Worklist page, click any column heading to sort the list on that column in
ascending order. Click again to sort the items in descending order.

Filtering
Once the marking process starts your worklist rapidly fills with responses to mark. It is
useful to be able to locate specific items, or item types, quickly and easily. You can do
this by filtering the contents of your worklist.

Creating a filter
In each worklist, you can filter the list by entering a value in a filter box at the top of one
or more columns and then choosing an appropriate filter option. For example, you
might filter a worklist to show only those responses that have a particular status and/or
have been updated since a certain date. A filter applied to an open worklist is
automatically applied to a closed worklist and is remembered by the system until it is
removed or until you log out of Assessor.

72
To create a filter:
1. In the Worklist page, enter a value in the filter box at the top of the column on
which you want to filter, then click the Filter button ( ) and select the appropriate
option from the pop-up list. For example, the following example screen shows a
worklist filtered to show only those responses that have a total mark greater than or
equal to 5.

Note: The filter button turns red when it is in use.

Note: To see the parameter applied to a filter, hover your pointer over the filter
icon in the column of interest.

2. If required, create additional filters in other columns. You can filter on a number of
columns simultaneously. The filter options for each column vary depending upon
the information in the column.
3. To remove a filter, blank out the entered value. To turn off a filter but keep the
entered value for possible reuse, select No filter from the pop-up list of options.

Toggling a filter
You can turn a filter on and off using the options on the pop-up list that appears when
you click the Filter button ( ).

To turn off a filter:

 In the relevant list, click the Filter button ( ) and select No filter from the pop-up
list of options.

To turn on a filter:

 In the relevant list, click the Filter button ( ) and select an option other than No
filter from the pop-up list of options.

Removing a filter
The No filter option on the pop-up list of options removes the filter and any filter text
you may have applied. To remove a filter:
 In the relevant list, blank out the value in the filter box.

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Tagging
Tagging is a useful technique for subdividing your responses or highlighting something
particular about a response. There are seven tags provided, each of which is displayed
as a coloured square. Tags are personal to you and cannot be seen by anyone else, so
you decide what you want them to indicate.
You can:
 Assign tags in the Worklist page.
 Customise tag names.
 Sort tagged responses in the Worklist page.
 See any applied tags within a response.
 Apply or change a tag within a response.

Assigning tags
To tag a response in a Worklist page:
1. Go to the relevant Worklist page and highlight the response you want to tag.

2. Click the More button, select Tags from the drop-down list and then click a tag. The
selected tag appears against the response in the Tags column.

Note: In the normal way, you can sort the worklist on the Tags column by clicking the
column header. This will group all tagged responses together in the list.

To tag and open response:

 On the toolbar, click the Tag button and then click a tag.

The Tag button changes to display the colour of the chosen tag (and the tooltip for
the button reflects the tag name). For example:

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Renaming tags
To rename a tag:
1. Do one of the following:
 In Worklist, highlight the response, click the More button and then click Tags
followed by Edit Tag Names.
 With a response open, on the toolbar click the Tag button and then click Edit
Tag Names.
 Click the Controls icon at the top right of the page, select User Options,
and then click the Tags tab.

2. The Tags tab in User Options is displayed.

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3. Type a name in the Personalised Tag Name box next to the tag you want to
rename. You can rename all tags in this step if required.
4. Click OK.

Note: The same tag labels apply across all QIGs you are marking.

Filtering tags
 In the Tag column, click the filter button and click a tag colour.

Note: To remove the filter, click the top (no colour) option.

The list shows the response with the selected tag colour only. For example:

Removing tags
You can remove the tags you have assigned to each response.

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 To remove a tag from a response:
1. Do one of the following:
 In Worklist, highlight the response and then click the More button.
 With a response open, on the toolbar click the Tag button.
2. On the tag list, click Clear Tag.

Opening a shared response

Your principle examiner or team leader may wish to share a response to discuss with
you, and if so will let you know the response ID. You won’t see the response in your
worklist but you can use the following procedure to open it.

To open a shared response:

1. On any screen, type the response ID provided by your supervisor in the Find
response by ID box at the top of the screen.

2. Click Search. If the response you are trying to view belongs to a different QIG than
your currently selected QIG, the Change QIG message is displayed.

3. Click Yes to change QIG and view the shared response.

The shared response is opened in view mode in the Marking page. You may be
able to see marks and/or annotations if this option is enabled by your supervisor at
the time of sharing.
4. Close the response when you have finished viewing it.

Exceptions
If you have an issue with a response you can raise an exception to seek support. The
exception will be routed to the appropriate person for resolution. Here are some
commonly used exceptions and their routing:

Exception
Image Rescan Request
Suspected Malpractice
Offensive Content
Material of Concern
Incorrect Question Paper
Answer outside of guidance
Incorrect Image
Routing
RM Service Delivery Team
Assessment operations officer
Assessment operations officer
Assessment operations officer
RM Service Delivery Team
Principal Examiner or Team leader
Assessment operations officer

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 File Access Error Assessment operations officer

Incorrect File Assessment operations officer

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Missing Letter for External Assessment operations officer

Institute

Incomplete coursework Assessment operations officer

Work not following course Assessment operations officer

requirements

General Coursework Exception Assessment operations officer

You can raise an exception from the marking page, no matter which mode you are in
(View, Marking or Full Response View).
You can raise multiple exceptions of different types against each response, but only
one of each type at a time.

Note: You can only raise exceptions for open live responses that you are responsible
for marking. You cannot raise exceptions for closed, practice or qualification
responses.

When an exception is resolved you are notified and can see the answer in your
Exceptions list on the Worklist page.
Your team leader addresses any exceptions routed to him or her using RM Assessor.
These can be escalated up the hierarchy via the principal examiner to the IB
Assessment Centre if necessary.

Note: When you raise an Offensive Content, Suspected Malpractice or Material of

Concern exception, you can submit the response in question. All other types of
exception raised must be resolved before you can submit the response in question.

Raising an exception
To raise an exception during marking:

1. Click the Raise Exception button ( ) on the toolbar.

2. The Create Exception form is displayed.

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3. Select an Exception Type.
4. In the Additional Details area, select Entire response if needed.
5. Type additional information in the Comments box. You will not be able to raise the
exception until you do enter some comments, as the Submit button will be greyed
out.
6. Click Submit. Your team leader is notified via RM Assessor and will attempt to
resolve the exception.

Note: Some exception types prevent you from submitting the response until the
exception is resolved in RM Assessor.

When you return to your worklist, notice that a drop-down list has been added to the
Exceptions column for the response. You can click on this drop-down list to select an
exception to view.

Notice also that your exception has been added to the list of Exceptions within the
worklist.

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Note: Some exceptions may disappear from your worklist. For example, a script that
requires an image fix because an ecoursework script could not be accessed or read.

Closing a resolved exception

If you have resolved exceptions for a QIG, you will see an alert on your Home page.

Click on the alert to open your list of resolved exceptions.

Alternatively, in each worklist you can see if any of your exceptions have been
resolved. Click Exceptions in the left-hand navigation bar, then click Resolved.

You must close a resolved exception before you can continue marking the response to
which it relates.

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 To close a resolved exception:
1. In the Resolved sub-folder, open the resolved exception you want to close.
2. Read the advice offered.
3. Click Close. The Close Exception form is displayed.

4. In light of the advice you have been given, type any comments in the Comments
box and click Close.
You can now mark and submit the response in question. You can see your closed
exception in your Closed Exceptions folder.

Getting support
Help
Your principal examiner or team leader is your primary point of contact for support
regarding marking issues. For support with the use of RM Assessor, please contact the
IB Assessment Centre, using either the dedicated e-marking mail box
emarking@ibo.org or by calling the e-marking helpline +44 29 2051 7114.

Troubleshooting
Connection problems
If your connection to the RM Assessor website fails, RM Assessor will notify you of this
via error messages.
Check the connection indicator at the bottom left hand corner of your screen.

A status of 'Online' indicates that you are connected to the RM Assessor website and
everything is working correctly. However, if your internet connection fails, or you have
some other temporary network problem, this indicator may change to 'Offline'.

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While you are offline, you will remain logged in to RM Assessor, but you won't be able
to save any changes you make or move between responses, and some buttons and
links may be disabled. You can continue marking questions for the current candidate,
but these changes won't be saved until your connection is restored. You can choose to
log off, but if you do so, any unsaved changes you have made will be lost.
If you remain logged in, then as soon as the 'Online' status is restored, any unsaved
changes you made prior to the problem will now be saved, and you can continue
working normally.
Usually, the connection will quickly restore without your needing to take any action.
However, if the connection does not restore, check the network cables are securely
connected to your computer. You might also try accessing another website; if this
succeeds then this suggests that the RM Assessor website is temporarily unavailable.
If you cannot resolve the problem then there may be a wider network issue, or you may
have a hardware problem such as a faulty modem or broadband router, and you should
contact your technical support provider.

Annotations toolbar is not visible

Ensure that you are in marking mode.
If you undock and lose the annotations toolbar, you can use the Dock the annotation
toolbar button to reset it back to the usual position.

I can’t find a response

If you can’t find the responses you are looking for, check:
 The QIG (if you are responsible for multiple QIGs).
 Whether Open responses or Closed responses is selected.
 Which worklist you have open.

Nothing available to mark

If there is nothing left to mark and you have not reached your target, try to download
more responses. If you cannot download any more responses there may be a
temporary lull in the process. If in doubt please contact the assessment officer
responsible for your subject.

Note: Targets are based on expected number of scripts, and there may be fewer
scripts available towards the end of the marking period.

Timeout
If you leave RM Assessor unattended for more than 30 minutes, a warning will be
displayed.
If you are not at your computer or you choose to ignore the message, after 30 seconds
the following screen displays, telling you that RM Assessor has been locked:

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When assessor is locked, RM Assessor will save all unsaved marking in your open
responses.
 To continue using RM Assessor, enter your password and click Go. You can
resume marking where you left off.
 To log out, click Close. A confirmation screen displays:

 Click No to log back in and continue working.

 Click Yes to log off.

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Reference
Technical information

Keyboard shortcuts
Ctrl+C Copy text (messaging only)
Crtl+P Print the response item you are viewing (structured responses only)
Ctrl+V Paste text (messaging only)
Ctrl+X Cut text (messaging only)
F2 Access the annotations toolbar (press and hold)
F8 Opens the Add Comment pop-up
/ Apply ‘No Response’ (NR) mark to a question item
# Apply ‘No Response’ (NR) mark to a question item

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Index

A fit width (image) ...................................... 45

folders .................................................... 14
additional objects .................................... 63
full response view .................................. 17
allocation ................................................. 21
toggle to and from marking mode ...... 39
annotations ............................................. 48
colour change ..................................... 50 G
counting.........................................48, 54
delete .................................................. 52 getting a response to mark .................... 26
delete all .............................................. 52 grace period ........................................... 23
dynamic ............................................... 48
float ..................................................... 53 H
links to item (greyed out) ..................... 52
modifying ............................................. 52 home page ............................................. 11
remove ................................................ 52
re-order ............................................... 53 I
static .................................................... 48
with assigned values ........................... 54 invalid marks .......................................... 56
definition ............................................... 9
atypical response .................................... 65
download ............................................. 65
marking ............................................... 22 K
response ............................................. 22 keyboard shortcuts ................................. 80
auto-advancing to the next response ..... 41
L
B link tool ................................................... 40
booklet view linked annotations greyed out ................ 52
marks and thumbnails ......................... 44
lock RM Assessor .................................. 18
C login screen ............................................ 10

changing marks ...................................... 63 M

closed items ............................................ 27
mark by candidate .................................. 43
concurrent marking limit ......................... 22
mark by question.................................... 43
counting annotations............................... 48
mark input panel .................................... 55
options ................................................ 17
D preferences ........................................ 17
delete mark ............................................. 58 re-mark ............................................... 68
start .................................................... 18
download a response to mark ................ 26 stop ..................................................... 20
target .................................................. 21
E with annotations ................................. 57
enter marks ............................................. 55 marking
exceptions ............................................... 73 target .................................................. 21
closing ................................................. 75 marking in simulation mode ................... 23
raising.................................................. 74 marking mode ........................................ 16
exit RM Assessor .................................... 24 marking preferences .............................. 17
marking screen ...................................... 16
F modes ................................................. 16
familiarisation mode ................................ 10 marking tools
filter ......................................................... 69 changing ............................................. 63
delete .................................................. 58
fit height (image) ..................................... 45

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 enter .................................................... 55
invalid .................................................. 56
modify.................................................. 58
saving .................................................. 59
toggle on and off ................................. 49
marking zoned responses ...................... 66
maximum mark
checking .............................................. 30
modify marks .......................................... 58
mouse wheel scrolling ............................ 46
my marking tab (responses to mark) ...... 14
N shared response
navigating responses .............................. 41
new message .......................................... 30
no response (NR)
unanswered questions ........................ 65
O
open items .............................................. 27
marking ............................................... 17
optional questions ................................... 64
P submit response ..................................... 61
page position indicator ............................ 46
pending status ........................................ 27
practice marking ..................................... 33
practice response ................................... 22
preferences in RM Assessor .................. 17
progress .................................................. 21
Q timeout ................................................... 78
question item list ..................................... 16
question totals ......................................... 63
quit RM Assessor.................................... 24
R unanswered questions ........................... 65
raise an exception ................................... 74
re-mark ................................................... 68
remove annotations ................................ 52
atypical ................................................ 65
definition ................................................ 9
download ............................................. 26
getting next or previous ....................... 42
navigating ............................................ 41
open for marking ................................. 26
opening more than one ....................... 26
structured ............................................ 38
submit ................................................. 61
types of ............................................... 22
unstructured ....................................... 38
view .................................................... 27
responses to mark ................................. 14
definition ............................................... 9
rotate images ......................................... 40
S
save marks ............................................. 59
send a message..................................... 32
referenced to response ...................... 30
opening............................................... 73
shortcut keys .......................................... 80
columns in worklist ............................. 69
messages ........................................... 69
responses ........................................... 69
standardisation response ....................... 22
start marking .......................................... 18
stop marking .......................................... 20
structured response ............................... 38
page scrolling ..................................... 47
T
tabs ........................................................ 14
tagging responses .................................. 70
target
marking ............................................... 21
terminology .............................................. 9
floating panel ...................................... 44
toggle marking tools on and off .............. 49
troubleshooting ................................ 77, 78
U
units of marking ........................................ 9
unstructured response ........................... 38
V
view a response ..................................... 27
view mode .............................................. 16
Z
zoom image ........................................... 45
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